Published by Chatto & Windus “Across the heart of Asia, at the ancient convergence of steppe and forest, the grasslands of Mongolia move towards Siberia in a grey-green sea. ... “Somewhere deep in this hinterland rises one of the most formidable rivers on earth. It drains a basin twice the size of Pakistan, and more …
Continue reading The Amur River—Between Russia and China: Colin Thubron
Published by Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins “... I decided that I wanted to write a book about life. Just life itself. What I’ve learned by living more than seventy years of it. ... “I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that I've suddenly come up with the answers to all …
Published by Penguin This is a family memoir: by tracing the lives of her grandmother, mother and herself, Margaret Forster looks at how things have changed for working-class women in the UK. This book brings to light the hidden lives, lives often considered too unimportant to be documented. Forster’s grandmother, Margaret Ann, was born to …
Continue reading Hidden Lives—A Family Memoir: Margaret Forster
Published by Cannongate and Harper Peter Hessler is an American journalist who speaks fluent Chinese and was The New Yorker’s correspondent in China from 2000 to 2007. While he was there, he got himself a Chinese driving licence and travelled through the country. Hessler applied for a Chinese driving licence in 2001. Acquiring the licence …
Continue reading Country Driving—A Chinese Road Trip: Peter Hessler
Published by Broadway Books “Reading is sometimes thought of as a form of escapism, and it’s a common turn of phrase to speak of getting lost in a book. But a book can also be where one finds oneself; and when a reader is grasped and held by a book, reading does not feel like …
Published by Allan Lane “The humble back-of-book index is one of those inventions that are so successful, so integrated into our daily practices, that they can often become invisible.” Dennis Duncan has taken the index from the back pages into the forefront in this informative and entertaining book. Who would have imagined that a history …
Continue reading Index, A History of the—A Bookish Adventure: Dennis Duncan
Translated from French by Linda CoverdalePublished by Penguin “I’d promised myself that before I turned forty I would live as a hermit deep in the woods.” That was Sylvain Tesson’s promise to himself, a promise that he kept. Tesson spent six months in a cabin on the shore of Lake Baikal in Siberia from February …
Continue reading Consolations of the Forest—Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga: Sylvain Tesson
Published by Vintage and Penguin I read The Snow Leopard when I was in my early 20s, and I loved it enough to put it on my list of 10 favourite books—where it has stayed since then. Published in 1978, The Snow Leopard is a classic, blending travel and philosophy. Peter Matthiessen was an American …
Published by Tarapress “Suraiya Hasan Bose is a name inscribed into the craft map of Andhra Pradesh. It speaks of a lifetime of passion and commitment to the cause of handloom from pre-Independence India to the present day.” This book pays tribute to Suraiya Hasan Bose and her lifelong association with Indian handlooms, especially those …
Continue reading Suraiya Hasan Bose—Weaving a Legacy: Radhika Singh
Translated from Polish by Jennifer CroftPublished by Fitzcarraldo Editions “Clearly I did not inherit whatever gene it is that makes it so that when you linger in a place you start to put down roots. I’ve tried, a number of times but my roots have always been shallow; the littlest breeze could always blow me …
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